Shrub, 1.5-3.5 (6) m tall; stems densely pubescent with erect trichomes. Leaves thin; petioles and midribs below with pubescence like stem; blades oblanceolate, acuminate, gradually tapered and decurrent onto petiole nearly to base, 10-38 cm long, 3.5-9.5 cm wide, glabrate above except on major veins, densely pubescent below. Inflorescences terminal, densely fine-pubescent, the spikes few to several, densely bracteate, to 13 (20) cm long, the bracts +/- obovate, acute or abruptly acuminate, l-2 cm long, red-orange; sepals 5, acute, subtended by 2 similar bracts; corolla tubular, 6-7 cm long, magenta, bilabiate, the upper lip 4-lobed, the lateral lobes very short, the lower lip entire, reflexed; stamens 4, stiffly erect, somewhat enfolded in and almost equaling upper lip; anthers open at anthesis, held together, with densely pubescent lateral margins; filaments fused to tube near base; style slender, equaling and held between fused stamens; stigma cupular, bilabiate, open at anthesis; nectary not obvious but with the nectar accumulating at base of corolla tube. Capsules 2-valved, puberulent, ca 2.5 cm long; seeds disk-shaped, ca 4 mm long, suspended on a long, recurved retinaculum. Croat 7760. Occasional, in the forest. Flowers usually continuously throughout the dry season (December to April); the flowers appear in succession, usually only a single one at a time from each spike, opening in the morning and usually falling off or wilting before the day is out. The fruits develop quickly, and the lower bracts usually contain mature capsules by the middle of the dry season. Though plants continue to flower in the late dry season (even rarely into the rainy season), the spikes are usually heavy with mature capsules. No doubt hummingbird pollinated. Costa Rica and Panama. In Panama, known from tropical wet forest in Bocas del Toro (Quebrada Huron), Colon (Rio Buenaventura), Coclé (above El Valle), and Panama (southwest of Cerro Brewster), but perhaps more abundantly from tropical moist forest on both slopes of the Canal Zone.